


Forwards

by abbichicken



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Abuse, Bickering, Biting, Consent Issues, Dubious Consent, Introspection, M/M, Pillow Talk, Rough Sex, Slow One-Shot, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-26
Updated: 2011-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-21 18:52:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abbichicken/pseuds/abbichicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik tries to convince Charles that they are perfectly suited for each other. This takes time, conscience-wrangling, sex, biting, and fighting, in various combinations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Charles tries to duck from within an iron grip and goes nowhere. "Ow! Erik, fuck, you're...my shoulders...oh..."

"Shhh...stop..." Erik drives harder and his grip gets tighter; his nails dig deeper and Charles is more out of the moment than he could imagine, wishing with all of himself that this would end, fighting his instinct/desire to right everything with a flick of his mind, to force Erik to be everything he fantasises about, and no more and no less, and certainly not this endlessly frustrating pain and unpleasantry.

"Erik, you're hurting me... _fuck_..." All of Charles is backing away beneath Erik's attentions, desperate to just focus on what's important, the way that Erik moves against him, the way it feels to have him inside, around him, the weight of his body on top of him, but all he can feel is the suffocation of being thrust face-down into the mattress, the clawing horror of knowing that you're going to be bruised and sore tomorrow - presuming you get as far as tomorrow, when there's so little air and even less circulation, it's the kind of thing one begins to doubt - without so much as the satisfaction of orgasm...

"Just...one more minute...just...ah..." Erik's words are barely there, so intense and furious are his motions.

But it's too much.

It's too...it's like things Charles doesn't want. It's half-memories that Charles doesn't want to go back to and a sensation that is in no way pleasant or sexual and _Erik why must you why can't you just be what I want you to be we could have something perfect_ and he hates himself for it but he can't help but try to teach a lesson.

He's aware of, and even exhausted by, the way he always wants to force his dissatisfactions into a fucking lesson for those around him, but hey, everyone else has aspects of their strength, their power, even just their personality that they can't control, so Charles figures that it is, in its own way, okay that he too has aspects of his self and his insights that he isn't on top of.

Charles closes his eyes and blinds a contorted, overenthusiastic Erik with a highly magnified version of the incredibly distracting discomfort that being fucked by him appears to involve. It hurts like nails on a blackboard transformed into the physical, something unbearable, something papercut and salt in the wound and tiny, in itself, but so very painful that you can't pretend it isn't there.

Stunned, Erik stops, mid-thrust, literally, half in, fingers dug deep into Charles' shoulders, nails puncturing skin in sudden grip, teeth gritted, eyes wide, even the bead of sweat at his temple pausing in its descent, staring, shocked, at the back of Charles' head.

"What was that?"

"I'm sorry, I tried to say..." Charles tries to shift around beneath Erik to face him.

"No. No, fuck this. I don't even know what this is. I'll...yeah."

Erik is out, off him, back in sportswear and out the door before Charles can even collect himself sufficiently to explain, or to justify, or to do whatever it is that would straighten this out.

He lies back on his bed, and sighs, lamenting the abandonment of what was 95% a great fuck. If only the 5% hadn't been so far from his...tastes.

Charles loves that Erik seems to lose himself so much in bed, that he gets carried away and becomes wrenching and teeth and sweat and pinching, shoving exertion...but he loses the plot every fucking time because it _hurts_ and he doesn't get how Erik gets past that. Maybe he's so accustomed to pain he doesn't notice. Maybe he's less sensitive, a strange byproduct of something. Perhaps it's traditional sadism. But it isn't so very dramatic that he had to...perhaps he should've just... But this is...oh, Charles groans to himself, _not worth making a fuss about_. He covers his face with his hands and wishes himself five minutes back in time so he could bite his lip and get to the point and feel a lot less empty and unfulfilled than he does right now. Swathed in embarrassment for reasons he can't pinpoint, he feels wronged in about five different ways. Most curiously of all, not by Erik.

It's just...it's like before. It's like people that aren't Erik, it smacks of something he doesn't want to associate this with and a place in both his past and his mind that he doesn't want to visit.

And, sharpest of all, it's not what he imagines, when he looks at Erik, and when he thinks of Erik, and when he jerks himself off lazily in the middle of the night - in the middle of the day, come to that - at any time, this short attraction has run so deep, so close to his heart that the things he thinks of are...they're perfect.

 _Why can't you be perfect?_

He looks for Erik, mentally, doesn't bother to so much shift out of the bed, to even try to get out of his own discomfort. Erik's room is just two doors down - Charles gave him the best guest room, of course, the largest bed, but it's always Charles' room they've ended up in, because it's always Erik that comes to him.

And that's what Charles always wanted; someone that always comes to him.

 _But why can't you be everything that I want?_

 _Come back_ , Charles asks Erik, from an open distance.

Erik is lying on the floor, rather than the bed, ashen-faced, mind blank, forcing himself to think of nothing. Charles thinks he knows men more than well enough to understand that this is a sign of shame of sorts, of not wanting to relive what's pushed oneself into such an unwanted position.

 _It's so good. Why am I fucking this up?_ he reads, fresh from the back of Erik's hard-at-work brain.

And it's a thought, a fear, they share. But, where Charles' thought of this is coated in _what am I doing wrong here_ , Erik's is wrapped in _why doesn't he get it_ and there's a disconnect that needs to find resolution before it evolves into anything more. It's a sign of all that separates them, and Charles feels Erik's nerves, his hit-and-run impulses, his how-far-away-can-I-get-from-this-horror, and that needs to be quelled before it takes hold.

Neither have had a truly, indefinitely satisfactory relationship - not a _whole_ relationship, not something that was in itself enough, without thoughts of past or future, without family, attachments, history and context. Neither of them had ever looked at someone and found themselves so fully alive and in the moment at every touch that there couldn't be enough time in the world to get everything they needed from each other.

 _Please_ , Charles projects, again, _come back_.

He sees - feels - senses - _whatever_ \- Erik lying there, deadweight, growling empty. Charles debates making him simply return to him, making him get back into this bed before he's even realised that there was no thought process behind the motion, but he also wants Erik to want him, to...to forgive him, he wants to know if this is just something Erik does, or if he's compensating for some kind of guilt complex - Charles has known more than one man who wanted to wrap up their homosexual inclinations in a fabrication of masculinity, assumed through a barrage of growling and faux-dominance. Charles prefers it...honest. He isn't ashamed of sex, nor of himself, and is frustrated by a partner who wants to play games without first explaining the rules. He didn't think Erik would be the type.

And it doesn't feel as if he is, either. And Charles knows, yes, he knows what Erik has been through in his life, that there are aspects of the way people have treated him that look like the most horrific physical experiences, but he knows, too, that there has been love in his life and that he has treated it...better than this.

That's the thing.

 _Why do you want to hurt me every fucking time?_

Erik is deliberately not listening.

Charles can't stand it.

 _Come here, I'm sorry_!

"Don't fucking whine at me," Erik responds, out loud and low, turning onto his side and wishing he could sink under the carpet in such a way that Charles would stop forcing his way into his mind. He projects disinterest, blankness, but his body belies it; Charles can feel that he's still half-aroused, that there's still a need for resolution. He can work with this.

"I didn't mean to stop you. I just wanted to explain. I just...I was weak. I'm sorry. You're stronger than I am, Erik, you don't know...there are things you don't know."

Charles knows precisely what he's doing. Erik is horribly easy to manipulate, even without the abuse of telepathy.

He can _feel_ Erik's interest pique. Erik likes to know things. Erik has felt for a long time that he has the measure of Charles, and Charles knows this, likes to play weak and quiet but at the same time...there's a point here, and maybe there's a little clearing-up to do before they can move forwards to the mindblowing sex the electricity between them deserves.

"Give me time," Erik says, and he wraps himself in _fuck off_ so loudly that Charles does.

Hours later, Charles wakes up to the sound of his door unlocking itself - itself, as if it wasn't the man with the skills to unlock any metal going who was obviously doing this - and Erik's shadow casts dark over darkness in the dimly-lit room.

"I didn't think you would come back after all that," Charles offers, in lieu of a greeting.

"Neither did I."

"Then, why did you?" He can't help but press Erik, knows he should try harder, that Erik is fragile, tested, that there is a point at which this, so thin and tenuous, might snap if he presses too hard, but, at the same time, Charles thinks Erik ought to have thought of that first.

"What don't I know?" Erik presses a question Charles knows he doesn't expect an answer to - which is lucky, as he isn't prepared to give one...not just yet.

Charles beckons him by shifting across his bed to make space. Erik obliges, shedding his tracksuit as he goes, habitual, he only gets into bed naked, but still, it's something Charles takes as a clear sign that their physicality isn't over yet. It's such a clear half-forgiveness to Charles that he wonders if he's constructed it himself, if he's pulling this towards his desires without his own consent, but no, no...it doesn't _seem_ to be that way.

And it's not awkward - it should be, but Erik doesn't seem to have awkward built into him - instead, it's calm, as he edges nearer Charles, puts a hand to his shoulder, pushing, grabbing, look at me, talk to me, insistent, eyes flashing through the darkness, the suggestion of the strength and cold disregard that started all this making itself known to Charles.

Charles refuses to give anything to this, shrugging back, but failing to dislodge Erik's hand.

Erik evolves the situation alone.

"I need you to know that I can have you," Erik says, carefully, turning onto his side and running a hand down, to not-quite-press at Charles' throat, down his chest, "any which way I like."

Charles frowns and, decisively, removes Erik's hand.

"I'm not with you." It isn't the apology he felt he deserved. It isn't the acknowledgement of the problem they're having. And it isn't fucking helping.

"You're so... _in here_ -" Erik taps his fingertips hard to his own forehead, "I don't know what you've seen. I don't know what you can do. I don't know what you might do. I'm your match. I need you to feel it. I need you to _know_ it."

Charles can't help his smile. "You're my _match_..."

Erik jolts a little as the smirk in Charles' repetition hits him.

"Yeah, I'm your fucking match," he riposts, to the mocking tone. "All it takes is a blow to the throat, head,I could have you unconscious in a second. I can knock you the fuck out and you can't do anything, you've got no power at all, I can take you anywhere. I swear, you're not as invincible as you think."

Just as Erik is about to bite his tongue, is about to blush with the defensive torrent he hadn't meant to sound quite so damn desperate, Charles bows his head.

"I know that."

Erik is rueful in an instant, and confused, because Charles went from bravado to wounded in less than the descent of his head to his collarbone. It's virtually unfair to switch tack so fast, to call on something that looks as if it demands attention, rather than rivalry.

Charles continues. "You're not the only one who's experienced violence, you know." He looks uncomfortable, shifting back a little, widening the literal gap between them as he tries to narrow their understanding of each other. "I've been through...before, before I learned how to take care of myself, to stand up to people, there were...when I was growing up..and the first time I...when I was...when I tried to..." Each time Charles fails to finish a sentence, Erik finds he knows, somehow, horribly, truthfully, _exactly_ what he was going to say.

"You're too rough, Erik. We're halfway to something perfect and then it's just...it just hurts."

"What can I say, you make me lose myself... Please don't make me do a post-mortem on an orgasm that never even happened."

"Didn't happen this time. But this wasn't the first time. But it's been the same every time."

Erik bites back the anger that he can feel collecting inside him because the more he looks at Charles, the more he sees that there's something trying to get out. Something perhaps that he hasn't given other people.

"There were times, Erik, when I was hurt and I couldn't forget about it. I saw what was going on in the minds of these people, and that was what stayed with me. When I asked them to stop, and they wouldn't - couldn't - when sometimes they fought against whatever better nature they had only to continue to make my life a misery, that pain, it's all tied up in the same sensations, I can't differentiate, and I don't see why I should. It's the reason I don't understand the way you come to life when you're causing me pain. If you...if you want to be with me, why would you hurt me?"

"It isn't...it's not about hurting you. No, that's a lie. I know better than to lie to you. I love the way you stop me from lying to myself; I know you're not even trying to do that, but there it is." Erik has a peculiar, self-satisfied smile crawling across his lips as he says this, an ephiphany of sorts converging upon him.

"I'm not...I want you to explain this to me, I don't want to look at what you're seeing, feel what you're feeling. I want you to put the pieces together for me because, to be honest, I'm so wrapped up in what I think this, all of this, is...I forget sometimes that we've only just begun."

It's been both forever, and no time at all. There are a thousand pieces missing, and, with the sense of urgency that surrounds them, with the amount of time they have to steal to get even this far, it's perhaps inevitable that short cuts would have consequences.

Charles looks so...tentative. Erik shakes his head.

"There you go again, sweetness and charm in spite of everything I just said to you. Look at yourself, Charles. Look at what you're saying to me, what you're asking of me, and of yourself. You tell me in one breath that you're scared of the memories of those who wouldn't stop themselves, and with the next, you're confirming every suspicion I have." Erik's voice is moderated in response, warm as a held razorblade and every bit as cutting. Charles finds the way he cuts through into the heart of his feelings excruciating, and, simultaneously, everything he ever wished for in a partner. No-one else has ever been so quick, and so _right_.

"I don't understand."

"I can't..." Erik's teeth actually clash, audibly, with his irritation.

Stalemate?


	2. Chapter 2

Not quite.

The silence hangs for so long that it's almost comfortable, that it's almost worth letting it all go. Almost. But not quite.

Just as he's thinking this can drop, that he can sidle out of it all, that they'll just, maybe, drift off to sleep and start again tomorrow and there'll be something to do, something that takes the focus off what's wrong and forces them into the kind of immediacy with which Charles would actually be comfortable. Maybe tomorrow can break Erik, so he doesn't have to. And still, and still, Charles is trying to find ways not to confront Erik's words, to lie to himself about who he is and what he wants and what that means.

Erik is winding up inside, dissatisfied with the lack of resolution and Charles' stubborn lack of co-operation. He could, he's sure, force it out of him.

And he's tempted.

But that's what Charles would expect of him. At least, that's what the presentable Charles would say, once he'd restrained him again, and held them back some more. Too predictable.

So fucking frustrating.

Erik realises he's got the sheet bunched and clenched in his fist. And Charles is just, there. Soft mouseback hair falling over his face, his expression curious and amiable and completely at odds with the verbal tennis they're playing. He looks so kind, and so...appealing. And even at this point, Erik would swear to anyone that he can see straight through this.

He spits, suddenly, "What's the fucking point? I don't get into bed with anyone I need to hold myself back for. I don't see it, I don't want it...what I love about you, Charles Xavier, and yeah, you can hang onto _love_ if you like because it's true, it's the only word I know for what we have and I don't use it lightly, what I love about you is the way that you could be so very much mine, despite everything you think and feel. I see the way you fall apart beneath me. I get that you hurt, that you're all torn up in your this and that and what ever came before me, but Charles, I am not your before. I am now; I'm here. And you want me. Just as I am. Just let yourself feel that. I can fucking taste it."

Charles sighs. It's so painful in itself, in words and gestures, when Erik comes at him this way, when he sidles verbally through Charles' best defences. And when he does this, and he's everything that Charles has ever desired, because it feels like he's just... _better_ than him, and in all his life, Charles Xavier couldn't tell you a time when he met a man he found to be better than he himself. At such points of realisation, Erik has him right where Charles feels at his most vulnerable, least sure of himself, and most certain of his need to be...with...Erik.

But he can't stop at that, and roll over, and say, yes, have me, just like you want.

He can't because _that's what he wants_. And Charles so rarely believes he is allowed to have what he truly wants.

He stretches and shrinks away a little, and tries to find the fire in his eyes, to make any protest that will validate the bickering between them.

"You need to claim me? Why not just piss all over me and have done with it? You're not an animal, Erik, however you might have been treated..."

"Where did you get that from? What are you inferring?" Erik is clipped, distressed, sudden edge and concern, more _what do you know that I didn't tell you_ , and _I don't remember when you got the right to make judgements about me_ than Charles could have expected.

"Nothing, my friend, nothing." Charles regrets his choice of words up against Erik's immediate barrier of _how dare you decide what I am_ , his application of Erik's own feelings about the way his body has been claimed and used by others seemingly wildly private, and inappropriate; misplaced.

"This, you see, it's this..." Erik bangs his fist into his own naked thigh in aggravation, fist smacking into pale flesh abruptly, emphasising his need to feel something, to punctuate every aspect of regular interaction with Charles in some way that will bruise. "It's the way that I don't know what you know about me...what I can't _see_ in you...I feel like you have me at halfway."

"I told you. I know everything about you. Not the detail, but I know...I get what you're thinking. What you do. Please, I don't want this to go on..."

"...then for the sake of all that you might be, would you please stop talking? This circularity hurts me more than your mindfucking."

"No." Charles says, simply.

"I don't know why I don't just leave," Erik says, more to himself, scratching at his head. "Are you making me stay here?"

"Nope, no, this is all your own doing."

"Maybe I'm more of a glutton for punishment than I thought..."

Charles actually _pouts_. "Talking with me is punishment?"

"Please don't pull that face. It makes me want to truly hurt you, just to change it."

"Be serious."

"Oh, I was. You don't even know how serious I was about that. I can't bear pouting, especially on a face like yours, already so pretty it could use a little bruising just to even it up."

Charles shudders visibly, and doesn't take the bait, resisting, playing the game by being so resolutely himself. "I'm sorry. But oh, I'm tired of apologising to you. I don't understand why we can't just...I mean, I could, if I wanted to, orchestrate anything I like. I could make you give me exactly what I want."

"What do you want, soft, tender sex? Want me to stroke your face and tell you I love you just before I come so politely and quietly it doesn't even get on the sheets?"

Charles shrugs, just a little flippant.

Erik's eyes widen in the most genuine fear Charles has seen from him. He bites in a laugh and gives over.

"No, no. No, I don't want anything so...prescribed."

"Then why are you talking about all this to start with?"

"I want _you_ , Erik. I want everything you are."

"Except when it hurts. You want everything I am, except when I'm most myself. When I'm most..." he doesn't finish the sentence; lets Charles finish it for himself. Charles bites his lip as he does so. Erik thinks there's an irony in that response.


	3. Chapter 3

It is connected to what's least and simultaneously most obviously at the heart of all this; the reason they're talking five ways around something that should be, would be, anywhere else, shoved under the carpet, or left to friends and alcohol to pick up and deal with as An Issue. They've both had more than enough Issues in their lives to want to _share_ over moments that should be about moving forwards, rather than looking back.

Erik is touching on the edge of that reason when he shoves himself forward, expression squinted into something piercing and wary, as he breathes heavy into Charles' face, pushing "You know exactly what you're doing. Don't fuck with me."

"Erik, please, I'm not doing anything of the sort, I'm only trying to explain...this is _hard_ for me..." Charles resists the urge to curl into some kind of protective ball, the way he would when he was sad, when he was a child, and would go and hide in his bed, thinking that if he only curled small enough, he could exist on the mental plane alone, rather than in the physical one, which could be so very tiring, and sad, and limiting.

"It's always so hard for you, isn't it? Isn't it?" Erik's voice has taken the edge which goes with that feeling, the growling, pushing, coiling threat licking around his every word.

"Erik, you're hurting me..." It's not quite a whine. It's not.

"I'm barely even touching you." Mockingly dismissive, and Charles is sure that that's not true, that Erik is hurting him quite a lot, actually, consciously, skillfully, is twisting and pushing at his side and pinching at his soft, pliable skin between his fingers, it catching like fabric at the willing snags of sharp, bitten/torn fingernails, and the way Erik looks at him, the way he fucking looks at him like he _doesn't care_...

...there is a flicker, and Erik catches it. Charles catches his breathe.

Experimentally, Erik scrapes one nail just deep enough to pixellate the skin red.

Charles flinches and whispers again, "Please."

The single word wavers across both hope, and fear.

Erik shakes his head.

Smiles. Teeth and all.

Charles is shaking, and fighting his mind quiet. Everything says, stop, don't do this again, don't let him do this again, don't let yourself be...this...this isn't what you want, who you are, a torrent of thoughts, crashing up against the behind of his eyes so hard it almost hurts, and yet he still hasn't had a moment's respite from the intensity of Erik's expression.

"No, I won't stop," Erik offers. "Shall I tell you why?"

"I...fear I won't want to hear the answer..."

Erik pokes him as hard and unpleasantly as if he were hammering home a stubborn point, speaking with punctuation between every word, now.

"I think you already know the answer."

Charles doesn't. Honestly, he doesn't.

Honestly.

He doesn't.

His mind swims around his own past, as separate as if he were reading the mind of someone else for clues, for details, for an explanation and exposition of their behaviour.

But it doesn't work with his own mind.

He wants to hold Erik right where he is, just for a minute, freeze him just so he can take some time from the depth of their connection, so he can take a breath and right himself, compose his body and calm it down, so he can maybe think of something to say that will stop them from falling over the edge of the cliff and dropping into...nothing.

Because that's where this will end, isn't it? In nothing?

Erik will see there is nothing to see inside him, and the game will be up.

And it will all be over, and for nothing, and he won't _care_ about the things he needs to care about, and Erik is...essential, in a way that isn't related to him, he is crucial to everything that they are doing here, to the work that Charles believes to be so important, Erik is so powerful, and so complex, and even if Charles weren't feeling everything that he is right now he would still need...he would want to be close to Erik, to... _study_ him, he is a marvellous complexity of psychology and physiology and they can all learn something from the way in which Erik controls himself...

...Charles is so very desperate to extend the situation outside himself. If it could only be about everyone else, if he could just...dissolve the intensity, for fuck's sake.

 _Don't do this to me._

But, if he does put a hold on things, then that, too, is cheating. Just as Erik presumes his own actions would be predictable, and a disappointment to Charles, so Charles has exactly the same thought process. Even as they both scrabble for a foothold, both remain, on some level, eagerly keen to please each other, knowing that in doing so they will please themselves.

Even when everything that Charles has ever been is telling him to back the fuck away, to throw Erik out of the room, maybe even out of the house, that this much feeling can never end well...even then the silver lining of it all is stronger. That same bit that says, _you know he's right_. The bit that wouldn't let him capture Erik for his own relief because the fun would sink right out of it, and the danger would be gone, and he would, as he has, so often in the past, have failed himself.

Convinced time will knock their fucking heads together soon enough, Erik decides they've already wasted too much of it.

"You can't even be honest with yourself," Erik whispers, lifting his hand for one...two...three... _wait just another second, watch, watch..._ and slapping Charles, open-palmed, across the face so hard and fast that Charles reels back and bangs his head against the headboard.

Impact reverberating through him from both sides, Charles moans and sinks flat to the bed, eyes blinking quickly, wet with surprise and confusion.

Erik snaps forwards, aligns himself perfectly against him, catching limbs with his own and straightening him out, and, even as Charles tries to push him away, Erik catches each of his wrists and wrestles him flat on his back, both his hands slammed up, bent, wrists pressed down above his head, fingers deft and encompassing, so Charles is trapped in a one-handed, numbingly tight grip.


	4. Chapter 4

Charles closes his eyes tight, fighting against the need not to miss a split second of Erik's gaze, trying to disassociate himself from the kneading at his wrists, from the pins and needles already creeping up his forearms, unused to stress positions as they are. There is, he promises himself, no arousal in _discomfort_. No-one is turned on by this much nagging, crawling, creeping in their forearms.

Especially not him.

Truly.

He's not.

Because what's to enjoy?

Even looking at the parting of Erik's hair, as Erik bends around Charles, reaching him here and there, nipping with sharp teeth at his neck, right hand pinching and scratching and twisting beneathing him, wrapping him completely, whilst his left hand keeps him pinned taut at the wrists, even this sets him thinking about how this would be quite something, if it weren't so obviously the precursor to something else. And because it is that, he should stop it. Should. Isn't.

Erik makes the most of his height - length - as his thigh brushes across Charles' cock, which defies all the logic in his mind, responding, as does the rest of his skin, muscle, fibre, to the smallest of torments, to the pins and needles, to the nails scraping, gently, repeatedly, in long lines down Charles' back.

Observing Charles' inevitable arousal, he comments, "I thought there was something wrong with your protests."

Charles shakes his head, finding the sentence abhorrent, whilst doing nothing to move away from it.

"You'll get there, Charles. You'll get there."

"Patronising?" Charles' words waver on the edge of his tongue, with his entire sense of self so indecisive, and his body beginning to betray him, he just doesn't have the cutting edge tone he wants to find.

"If needs be," Erik says, smooth as a whistle, "if needs be."

Charles exhales, and Erik licks along his chest, pausing at the nipple, pressing a half-bite, catching the tip of solid flesh between tongue and upper teeth. Every muscle in Charles' chest quivers. Erik relishes the muscular response with a lick.

"Erik..." Charles says, so vague, he really shouldn't bother at all. "I can't..."

"Just relax. All of you needs to relax, and then...come with me. I wish I could..." Erik waves his free hand in empty gestures.

"Bend me like metal?" Charles feels like he's bent in five places already, and, worse (better?) than that, as if he is completely at Erik's mercy.

"Actually yes, you'd contort beautifully, but...that's not where I was going at this moment in time."

"I don't...Erik, I don't..." These aren't protests at all.

"I think you've said enough. Don't say any more. Just, stop thinking, take a deep breath. And feel. And Charles..."

Charles wide-eyes the rest of the sentence.

"Don't hold yourself back." Erik's smile becomes a grin, genuinely excited, believing, at last, that they're getting somewhere. He lets go of Charles' hands after so long, so long that Charles can't really move his arms at all for a moment, and when he does, he's again distracted completely by a new pain.

Erik's teeth are sharp and firm and sinking slowly, slowly into his flesh, just _there_ , ice-pin sensation in Charles' shoulder, the skin so pale the veins are clear and present, blue beneath its translucency. Charles feels the point of hurt _here_ and, as instructed, takes the deep breath, and lets it sink in. He feels it in his stomach, turning, queasy, almost, so close to nausea, but simultaneously...close to something else...

... Erik releases his bite, turns to another, further down, at the bicep, mouth encompassing the muscle, slender and trembling and nervous. He matches it with a clawing at Charles' side, that possessiveness clear in the dig and twist of rough-edged nails. Charles clenches his teeth and shifts into the motion, surprising, delighting. Erik takes another, harder bite, a millimetre from breaking through to blood, bruisingly deep and firm and hot and then he licks, flat and warm and wet at the toothmarks which purple instantly.

His body is moving in a way that Charles isn't familiar with, winding against him, pushing, pushing up against him, and then sliding back; he's everywhere, and it doesn't hurt at all, Charles realises, as the blood rushes around his body, as his arms, his chest, his back throb with fleeting heat and ache and stimulation.

"Hit me," Erik whispers, looking up at him, poised over him, out of breath and shining with excitement. "Don't hesitate."

Charles always hesitates. Always. He always wants to wait, to think things through, to check from every angle, virtual risk assessment. Erik's thinking of forcing their chess games to be timed, because taking that long to make a move is basically cheating.

But not now.

Charles doesn't hesitate at all.  
Erik begins to laugh as Charles' fist connects with his collarbone. True laughter, as well, nothing mocking. It's a solid punch, direct, with no pullback, the knuckles held well, a punch trained in a good school, and in the scuffle that ensues, Erik taunts him with that understanding - he's fought plenty of men from good schools, and beaten every single one of them to bloody pulp or death, whichever was best required. He parries, and allows Charles to get his hand in, and the more Charles is allowed to land, the harder he hits, the worse he gets, the more he recognises what's bubbling up in his veins, the more he's torn between backing off and showing up, this is a crossroads, a turning point, a _can you see this through_ if ever there was one.

He's virtually leading Charles by the hand, Erik thinks, giving and giving and maintaining a potentially incidental friction below the waist that gets more deliberate as they fight, as Charles finds more and more frustration in himself and learns to ignore the pains in his wrists, in his knuckles, that come from his actions, as he learns to channel everything that doesn't make sense and refuses to fall in line into his own aggression. As this happens, he becomes still more attractive to Erik, much more so, now that he isn't so brokenly, stubbornly apologetic, because this, this is the _real_ Charles, or, rather, this is the part of Charles that Charles didn't know was inside him - couldn't admit was inside him.

Erik would bet anything and everything he has, down to his very ability to manipulate metal, that Charles has never been this much himself with anyone else.

It appeals to every angle of his possessive, needing side, which, under the cover of so much demanding, forms Erik's own quiet, repressed part of everything that _he_ is.

The point at which Charles breaks through his reserves, out of himself and into Erik's heart, if truth be told, is the moment at which he manages to throw Erik away from him for just long enough to get the space to launch himself back at him with some force, to catch him off-balance, by surprise, and, by sheer strength of determination, to wrap and wrestle Erik down onto his front.

He feels Erik give beneath his hands, and yield as he kicks and shoves at his legs, and for a minute all he wants to do is run his hands up and down the man's spine, just.... _marvelling_ , but that's what Charles would do, and at this moment, he is barely Charles, or is most Charles, or is somewhere between the person he was and the person he is yet to become.

"Going to fuck me?" Erik mumbles, into the springs of the mattress, but Charles can't hear; he's too busy attempting an answer in the affirmative.


	5. Chapter 5

Charles spits in his hand, tries to slick himself with it, but still when he goes to push into Erik it's tight and difficult and kind of another kind of pain in itself as skin stretches where it shouldn't and Erik is just... _there_ , compliant with all of Charles' fumbling, patient, quiet, not nervous, but...anticipating.

Sweating with effort, rather than arousal, fired up with spiking levels of testosterone Charles isn't sure he's ever previously experienced, dancing with elevated adrenaline generated by the repeated surges of muscular exertion, Charles is swollen with the sense of this being sheer domination, rather than eroticism, from a perspective he's never had. This power, this side of things, this is a strength he never believed in, certainly never believed he could experience in himself.

Erik drags his teeth along the ridges of the mattress, looking for something to bite, and finds nothing, so he settles on his own forearm. Charles' attentions are, as yet, annoying, rather than the cauldron of excitement he can imagine, but Erik is, if nothing else, a patient man, at least, when he's certain there's something worth waiting for. Of everything Charles is demonstrating, 'promise' is top of the list.

He's this close to begging Charles to rip him apart to spare him from the focus on the snagging, pulling sensation of Charles forcing himself inside him this way, and then he realises that, based on the limited amount of times (actually, just the one time) things went this way around before, Charles has clearly never fucked anyone without copious quantities of Vaseline and kindness, and so this is, if not a new position, it is at least still...new. It definitely has the taste of Charles testing the waters.

 _Just fucking dive in_ , Erik wants to tell him, tries to project to him, but he knows that Charles isn't even listening. Then again, in another way, as long as they're still moving forwards, it's more fun to let him work it out for himself. Erik can convince himself that anything is fun, if he wants to.

He bites his own arm bloody, more of a test than you might think, and Charles pushes once more, hard, and is full inside him, and Erik keeps his teeth right where they are as he can feel Charles pause, holding it together, trying not to come immediately. Erik deliberately draws tight every muscle he can, just to make it...harder for him.

He feels Charles' sweat dripping onto his back, and he pushes the taste of red metal around his mouth with his tongue, sucking in air over it, arousing himself, because he can.

And all the while, Charles just...holds himself there.

Erik shifts beneath him, feeling stuck and slightly...needing, Charles' palms pressing down where he's bracing himself on Erik's shoulderblades, making it difficult to breathe as deep as he wants to, now.

 _What are you fucking doing?_ Erik wants to shout, but doesn't, afraid that Charles is on the edge of giving up, or something, or _what_ exactly, fucking hell, Charles, fucking move, but he won't...

As it happens, Charles is just enjoying the view, marvelling at it, even, taking in the details of Erik's flushing, strained back beneath him, balancing it with the rough pressure around his cock, the friction between his thighs and Erik's sides, slender, as if they were made to be straddled.

Erik takes himself away from here for a minute, because he has to, or he'll lose it, and, potentially, they'll have to do another few thousand words of indecisive monologue before they get anywhere near this position again, and he just doesn't have the stomach for it.

He pictures Charles _afterwards_ , imagines, if he's this good now, if he looks so good already, if he feels this good when he's fucking making it all up as he goes along, discovering, because even though it's driving him fucking crazy, Erik wouldn't deny that he's hard as anything, and that Charles' touch is perfectly suffocating, for all everything else he's doing is nothing - if all of this is just right for him, then what's the end product going to be like? What could they have, in a fortnight, in a month? Two? Maybe that's going too far.

If the world ends tomorrow, then what could they have by morning?

Charles realises only when he feels the mattress springs vibrating that Erik is actually wanting, is, even, perhaps, frustrated. He's amused by this, and wonders if there's something to be had in spinning this out, but, at the same time, he doesn't want to seem...like he's unsure, lacking. Not having come this far. Not when he's already conceded so many points tonight.

A grating, appreciative groan from Erik's throat surprises him like an answer to the question he was contemplating, as, at last, Charles begins to shift against, inside him. It hurts, dry, forced, but...it hurts _perfectly_. Erik returns his teeth to his arm, and pushes back.

Feeling just about in control of his urges, at least, Charles keeps having to remind himself to keep his eyes open. He feels exposed, because he is, perhaps, and exhibitionism is not his thing at all. Even with no-one else in the room, and his partner face down, he's still fighting thoughts of _am I doing this right?_ , as if he even had a hold on what _this_ is. Do what feels good, he tells himself, and that's a tough instruction to follow, even as everything about this already feels amazing.

As he fights for clarity, Charles wraps himself around Erik's broadness, hands pulling, grasping for a hold. He means to scratch, to try to get a reaction from Erik to emphasise his continuing dominance, but misjudges and _rips_ into him, stronger, sharper than he knew. He feels the heat and, seconds later, the slide of blood on sweat, and his eyes flash open to meet Erik's, to prove their fear and generate some form of communication, but, of course, he can only see the back of Erik's head, so he slows and reaches and slides his hand into Erik's damp, wax/sweat-slick hair and yanks him upwards, pulls, pulling, commanding _look at me_ , over his shoulder.

And he turns his head obligingly and stares into Charles' eyes, but Erik isn't there, there's only electric lust sparking back at him, scrawled all over the cruel twist of his lips and the eager backwards jolt of his hips, pressups on the bed, rippling muscles across his back, encouraging blood from scratches and sweat from pores and an endless amount of _pressure_ all around Charles which is increasingly consuming everything he has.

Erik smiles, and there's blood between his teeth. Charles drives so hard into him that the smile is gone, and Erik takes his turn to sink down and close his eyes.

Something about the look on Erik's face, the lack of look in his eyes, they're like permission, for Charles, at last, to switch off. To...be...present, in whatever happens, rather than lost in his own mind, much less in that of his partner. Not in the past, not in the future, but _here_ , allowing every stretch of physicality to be only what it is, and not to mean anything at all.

Charles writhes and thrusts and bucks and groans so loud he shocks himself with the gravity and violence of his desire, with the crudity of the sounds they make. His breathing is down to chokes, his throat caustic as the need for oxygen catches at his lungs.

He can't be close enough to Erik, reaches around him, clawing at his chest, mauling Erik any which way he can to get a better catch against him, trying to feel as much of him as he can, loving the way Erik twists and reacts to each scratch, each shove against him, as if he were being played, rather than fucked, and he's never felt so in control of himself, so in control of anyone else, and all this _without using any kind of power at all_ ; if he had space, he'd be so fucking proud of himself that it might as well have been that that sent him over the edge.

As it is, he doesn't know what the fuck it is that does it for him in the end, if it's just the repetition, if it's the way his fingers slip and stick to Erik's skin, if it's the resonance of the growls Erik makes, and the way Charles can hear his teeth clash as he jolts up inside him, but whatever it is, he's never come so hard, it overtakes him, rushes up inside him and he nearly fucking screams because it's such a relief when it happens, fucking explosive and convulsive and he presses his face so hard against Erik's back that he can hear the thump of Erik's heart above the rushing of blood through his ears.

He stays there, inside, on top, for a moment, tasting, because he can, at the sweat on Erik's back, completely covering Erik, who does nothing more now, just, lies there, and waits. It's not long to him but it seems like hours there for Charles, as he gathers himself back together, just enough to move away.

Charles aspirates vowels at random, as he rolls back onto the bed.

"That was..." he searches for something to finish the sentence adequately, and can't, he feels like he's on fire, and simultaneously as if he's being doused with cold water; shattered, spread, bruises coming, and glad of it.

"Was?" Erik's already the other side of the room, searching bottles for a drink. He finds something, upends the bottle, streaming it into his mouth, carelessly letting the excess pour down his jaw and onto his chest.

"Huh?" Charles is nearly concentrating, but a part of him is really hoping that's not his thirty-year Scotch that Erik's rubbing into his chest like it were cold cream.

Erik doesn't answer, whilst he's gulping down something that can't be water as if it was water, and then he sticks the bottle back down, and stalks back to the bed, gesturing, with a stroke or two of his cock that he's far from satisfied.

"Oh," Charles says, and reaches out, offering to help with that.

Erik knocks his hand away, with a laugh that isn't accompanied by any trace of humour whatsoever.

"Oh, Charles, no, that won't cut it."

"Hmm?" Charles says, dropping his slapped hand regretfully, already looking like he's going to say _I love you_ by mistake, before falling asleep.

"I thought you were confronting things here? I thought you were going to show yourself to me?"

Charles just nods, not taking this in at all.

Long fingers wrap around his shoulder, tight, and pull him forwards, upwards, Erik crouching over him, holding him eye-to-eye.

"Not to belittle your fun, there, because, yeah, that was fun. But, Charles?"

Blue eyes stare, blinking, confused...and excited, in the distance.

"Erik?"

"We've only just got started."


	6. Chapter 6

Charles shakes his head, slowly, carefully.

He knows his limits. He does. Even if he's just had a swathe of them shattered and paraded in front of him, he knows he's tired, sore, he's come, he's happy, and Erik is...just so fucking dangerous, but he can't get enough of him, there, look at him, insistent, it's not even a smile, it's not, it's...instruction. Conviction. _What is he even suggesting?_

And Charles doesn't want to look inside Erik's mind, is captivated by what he can see in the shadows.

It's only fair, to give...something back, even if Charles still feels like his orgasm was taken from, rather than given to him, it's still...Erik is undeniably unsatisfied.

But as he reaches up, and even then, as Erik shoves him back down, his body pliable as rubber, bouncing off the bed as easily as he was shoved back down on it, even then he hurts and is desperate for rest, maybe, why couldn't there be more rest, fuck, what if he does pass out, and what would he wake up to? And that's...he's had that...he's known that...to wake up and be...and not know... _not to know_...

...and Erik is back teasing on him, on oversensitive, ripe skin where it feels as if every touch will bruise, never mind those that are intended to bruise, the fingertip presses and holds and pulling this way, this way, no _this way_ , god, Erik...Erik's skin is red hot to the touch, muscles as tight with blood as his cock is hard and _fuck stop biting me_ Charles thinks, he can't take any more of that, he can't, but he doesn't project, doesn't tell Erik, doesn't for a second think about actually asking him to stop...

...because the bit that says _stop_ and the bit that says _harder_ have their roots in the same place, but the former, for Charles, was shame and insignificance and weakness and fear and a thousand hateful memories, and the latter is all Erik and revelling in the wreckage that he is and taking it over and over because actually, after all that, after everything, he can. Because he can be the person that inflicts this, and if you can give, you have to take as well, and if you can find your match...

...you should claw it to fucking pieces and spit in his face and let him kneel on your upper arms so they go dead and yank at your hair, pulling your head up to _fuck_...

Erik has his hand at the back of Charles' neck, cock pushing suddenly and insistently at Charles' lips, with part between eager and nervous, fighting for composure in the taste of salt and heat and the convulsions that occur involuntarily when Erik shoves into the roof of his mouth and across the back of his tongue as deliberately gagging as if he were trying to make Charles throw up.

They're both so far past the point where anything is off the table. The table is only good for fucking firewood, come to that.

Erik is making the most demonic of sounds, groans and laughter mixed up, completely on top of everything this is and raking Charles' mouth for more stimulation. Charles just...lets him, and lets every other sensation drift away as he tries to perform in some way, even as Erik is making it more than clear that he doesn't need to do fucking anything, is barely giving him space to exist, he still wants in, and that, to Erik, is a sign that he was not just right, but that he is _always_ right. It's a terrible piece of assertion, but the payoff for that is far, far away.

When Erik pulls away and Charles gets oxygen back and is gasping and his arms get to regain circulation at the same time, he's so flooded with sensation that he can't even focus, can't keep a hold on the reality at all and he feels himself trying to centre with his mind, to find his place here by gravitating around his own mental space but no, no, he's not going to do that, no safety nets, no _cheating_ , you're here, Charles, you can fucking stay here just like everyone else because you're more than the sum of your mind.

"Shut up," Erik says, arranging Charles' body beneath him for what comes next, wiping tracks of blood away to make room for more, all the while stroking at his cock, keeping himself straining to fuck.

Charles hadn't even realised he was making a noise, his throat is so raw, and his ears are ringing and pounding simultaneously.

Erik positions himself, wet and ready, and begins to push inside Charles who is _whining_.

"I said, _shut up_."

"Ah..." Charles can't.

As Erik pushes and slides on top of him, so Charles finds long fingers are curling around his throat.

"Quiet..."

Charles inhales all he can. Erik chokes him so hard he can hardly even expel the air.

Everything starts to swim as his insides pulse and collect and he can't be, can't be...this can't be... _what am I now_...

He sees himself reflected in Erik's eyes, just, and it's shocking, and livid, and swollen and Charles is just goldfishing and nothing's coming out and there are stars in the room with them and this is...

Erik lets go.

His smile is genuine this time, though still ice cold. His body is dripping hot and furious, though.

"Better," he says, and Charles doesn't know if there was more to that sentence.

Charles can't even tell where his legs are, caught somewhere around Erik's, doing everything to push himself up, to get them both a better angle, to close the non-existant gap between them, hard again where he didn't imagine he had the strength to be, unafraid to show how much he _wants_ and how strong he is, _Erik, because you get it, don't you, you always got it, you always knew there was more to me, and I didn't want to...couldn't...and now..._ not real thoughts, not conscious ones, but the soundtrack to contemplation in the morning, and tomorrow night, and every night that doesn't look like this for ever, Charles will remember how he conquered things

"Yes..." he forms, as Erik, teeth gritted just like always, encompasses his entire body with each thrust, wrapped around him at each limb and so far inside him that Charles feels each stab as a violation of his insides _surely that is too far fuck but do not stop don't you fucking dare even hesitate I can take it_ and Erik hears all this because Charles couldn't quiet himself if he wanted to right now, doesn't care if he's an exhibtion inside and out, everything that he feels and couldn't begin to articulate is projected in vivid viciousness.

Erik feels it when Charles doesn't fight against his urges, he feels the surge of unattached _pride_ Charles experiences as he takes every sear of pain and reveres it, needs it, takes it and asks for more.

 _I can take everything you've got and I'll still want more._

A quiet, calm statement of realisation, amidst the fury of their contact.

Erik takes it as a dare, as a challenge, treats Charles' body as if it was there only and solely for his pleasure, as Charles achieves the perfection of not just being used, but of being fit for purpose. Of not having to think, to orchestrate, of leaving the dilemna of right and wrong and his thousand concepts of what it is to be Charles Xavier aside.

The man he is when beneath Erik is ultimate, assured and stronger than Charles had ever imagined he could be. Every single pain is accepted, converted, digested, sensed and manufactured into _Erik_ , into definition and a glaring, intoxicating play for power, for survival.

Charles has his revelation right at the point of final orgasm, when it all but fucking kills him to hold back any longer and he lets himself howl into it, utterly stretched and had and taken at every point, crushed beneath Erik's weight and motion just as he was so far back in time when he was...half himself, constrained and pretentious, and here, this time, now, he is wholly perfect, _they_ are perfect, in a single physicality that is utterly obvious, now he's here. It was worth everything, just to get to here.

 _Erik clenches so tight into him that Charles feels his insides buckling at the pulse and heat of come, can't _stand_ the stimulation of Erik grinding up furiously hard in, against him, amidst the burn of salt-sweat on the scrapes and gouges in his flesh, through the wrenching of every muscle he has, begging for relief and release._

Relief and release come a fraction from blackout, Erik's body becoming elastic - not literally; they saw that on a mutant in Chicago and it was...compelling, if distressing - and the pressure inside him subsiding in slackness and slithering, the sensation of leaking wet on the sheets providing just enough of a background hint of some kind of filth and shame to dress this all up as the kind of sex Charles could never have admitted to having wanted since he discovered it could be 'wrong' to be excited by certain things.

Before Charles' heart rate has slowed from pelting to steady, before his breaths are more than shallow, Erik is already slinking away, the heat of sex and effort seemingly going with him, as Charles feels his absence first in a shiver of chill night air across his quivering body.

"I can't..." Charles says, reaching out into empty space, going nowhere with a sentence.

"Don't," Erik says, answering the meaninglessness by leaning over the bed, issuing him a single, courteous kiss on the cheek, an uncharacteristic formality, of sorts, soemthing that makes Charles flip into a final wave of aftershocks. Erik doesn't even seem to notice, simply making a 'stay there' gesture of his hand, even as he's snatched up his clothing again and is disappearing out the door.

Charles isn't worried. Despite his reaching and wanting, his capacity for so much more...holding. After each of their previous encounters, Erik has disappeared immediately, to shower, and, Charles would swear, to shave and fix his hair.

He always comes back.

This time is no exception.

"What's that about?" Charles asks, turning over to greet Erik as he returns, appreciating the way his skin seems to crack with each motion, coated as it is with dried _everything_ , shifting and evolving and yellowing and darkening in places into bruises Charles will come to treasure, rather than regret, creating more firsts for himself from the clay they've wrought together tonight.

"What's what about?"

"All this," Charles gestures, "cleaning."

Erik raises an eyebrow as he slips his robe off, and slides, naked, and without a single sign of distress, excess or scarring. "I like to look my best. All the time."

"Aren't you...vain..."

Erik shrugs.

"I'm many things. You can have them all."

"Thank you. You can have all..." Charles looks down at himself, his messed-up, used and seeping body something that would embarrass him on another day, thrown into swollen, reddened polarity against Erik's pale-tan solidity, but not now, not when he's still so soaked in afterglow that he shines all over in absolute comfort.

Erik smiles his wry, appreciative best, the smile that comes with warmth, rather than teeth. "I'll take it." He rescues the covers from the floor where they were kicked a small eternity ago, and entwines them both in cold fabric.

Charles curls into Erik's forthcoming embrace, and finds that he can have the best of every world, because nothing looks so much like his depiction of perfection than this, this, at the end of things he's learned where he didn't think he had space to.

He wants to say something more to Erik, he wants to...not apologise, because, certainly, this is his undoing that's come about - finding yourself down at someone else's level is nothing to make your apologies for - but at the same time...what could he say? How can he convey gratitude for something so dark? How can he be say, thank you for cutting me open and dragging out something so dark, and not have it sound like damnation?

But then Erik rubs his head against against Charles' shoulder, just a little. If you wanted to, you could have called that motion _nuzzling_. And Erik is warm, and smooth, and smells good and clean and is wrapped tight to his body everywhere it matters.

And he reminds himself that Erik is _here_ , all but posed around him, the picture of closeness and - fuck it - _romance_ that he wanted to convey in that cinchingly embarrassing time before, when he couldn't say _you're perfect for me because you've already been everywhere I need to go_ because he didn't understand - didn't want to understand - things in himself.

Here, then, Erik is showing that he understands that Charles, too, is many things, none of which he has to change for this to be everything that either of them will ever need in another.


End file.
